Tag: people

The Pamir Highway Part 2: Fuel, disaster, people and views, views, views (August, September 2024)

In the Bartang Valley other travelers reported that the road from Dushanbe into the Pamir area were pretty much under construction and that there were hours of waiting times to be expected. So we decided that we would take a loop and return to Kyrgyzstan.
From the western exit of the Bartang Valley, we continued our journey on the Pamir Highway and the valleys of that region.
Diesel in good quality became a rarity and so we took some out of Rosinante’s auxiliary tank and transferred it into Otto. The alternative was to buy some diesel from a guy with a old bucket full of diesel. The roads developed into a mixture of tarmac, concrete, gravel and dirt.
In Khorugh, one of the few bigger settlements in that region, we organized some stuff. It was not so easy to get certain things but as always it was interesting to discover a new place.
Otto’s exhaust pipe got welded and looked good again.
A screw had been broken off in a thread in the bracket of Rosinante’s underbody armor and we tried to remove it because the armor plates made crazy rattling noises on some frequencies of eroded tracks. I only wanted to use the lift and cordless drill of a mechanic because our had broken. But communication was difficult and so the mechanic tried to fix it. He broke the thread out of the bracket. I was pretty pissed but did not got mad with the guy. So it was cable ties again.
We went further south along the river separating Tajikistan from Afghanistan. It was interesting to be there and see Afghanistan and the Afghan people on the other side of the river. I guess mainly because of the news reports, I have a biased attitude towards Afghanistan and it was interesting to feel that.
We had to pass several military checkpoints and one soldier tried to get money from Simon for having the horns Racki had gifted him. But all went good. At one camp spot we got moved by the soldiers patrolling the river. It was not so easy to find camp spots and I would recommend everyone to just skip the border area where you are not able to keep at least a kilometer of distance to the river. We had some windy days and took the opportunity to play around with our kite. The local children loved it as well and I thought about gifting the kite to them. But in the end I kept it.
We visited the Afghan Market, a market for Afghan and Tajik people in the middle of the big river separating the countries. It was a nice visit, we tried the barbeque and had our first contact with people from Afghanistan who were all very friendly. And for me especially the men had a special look. Taking photos was not allowed on the market.
After some hiking, we visited a museum where a elderly and absolutely motivated man showed and explained a lot to us. We’re not so much into museums, but this one was pretty fun.
We wanted to visit an ancient Buddhist temple and a local kid took the opportunity to get some money by leading us there. Because he was a fun guy, he became our little guide. It was not much left of the temple, though.
The views along the river were very interesting.
And changing.
I liked the old school patterns of fields. The local farmers did not use machines and did all by hand and with the help of donkeys, horses and cows.
This was my favorite camp spot on the Pamir. It was a pretty tough dirt road with stones and steps to get up there but once we reached that place, it was beautiful!
We asked the surrounding farmers if we could stay for a couple of days and they were very fine with that. I think they liked having us there because I guess not so many tourists come up to that place. So we helped a bit with their manual farm work, had little chats via google translate and enjoyed the place.
And especially the views
One day we did an awesome hike up along the river.
On the way we met some cute friends.
And the views were awesome again!
Happy hikers.
I had thought the gravel mountains would be pretty boring very fast, but they did not.
Next we went east and the track got super crazy. It was the most eroded track we ever took and the waves were very deep. There were two ways to go: slower than 5 km/h or at least 70 km/h. So accelerating until 70 was a very, very shaky experience. Sometimes we had the feeling that Rosinante would fell apart. Simon had the same with Otto. But the cars made it through that as well.
Near Murghab, the other big settlement on the Pamir, we visited some ancient paintings.
And a absolutely stormy old observatory. The wind was so strong that we could lean into it. But staying there with Rosinante was not an option and so we went down from the hill to a river.
I loved the Yaks! They look so cool! We shared a camp spot with them. They were mostly eating and we rearranged the fuel pump for our diesel heater because it stopped working. After the rearrangement everything was fine again.
The ways the locals are transporting stuff and animals are adventurous. After some years of traveling, cows and horses on small transporters became pretty common. Although it got a place in the sun, this sheep seemed to be not so happy tied to the roof rack of one of the offroad taxis.
Most of the cars on the secondary roads/ tracks were some kind of offroad cars. Mostly Land Cruisers. And that’s a pretty strong statement on the road/ track conditions. When even the locals don’t go with the ordinary cars, it’s a pretty strong indicator for the conditions.
But the main roads, which we did not take so much were pretty good. Deep, deep potholes and some pretty broken sections, but absolutely driveable with all cars.
In Murghab, we met a horde of local children who got a bit annoying from time to time. But it was still a nice encounter. We played again with our kite and made some jokes.
And we met an interesting group of other travelers. Some traveling with a van, some with a car and some back packing. We had a chat, borrowed them some US Dollar (because the bank in Murghab does not exchange Euro) and talked about the way laying ahead to Kyrgyzstan. We told them about the pretty though part between the borders and promised that we would tow their van over this tricky part if it would be necessary. So we made up a day on which we would all cross the border together.
This is the main shopping place in Murghab.
Very different from Western European towns.
But always friendly and interesting. We found fresh fruits, cheese,
and Yak milk ice cream!
After Murghab we entered another area off the main road.
The colors in that area were amazing!
Our camp spot.
More Yaks!
After a nice hike and some days, we continued our way to the highest point of our Pamir adventure: 4500 meters. The cars did everything very well and we had a nice view.
On our way back to Kyrgyzstan, we wanted to stay again on the beautiful camp spot next to the big lake which we had used on our first day of the Pamir as well. On the way there, Simon wanted to find his sunglasses which he had lost some weeks ago on the dirt road. So we separated but agreed on meeting on a specific location.
At some point Rosinante’s warning indicator for the diesel filter turned on. First it was a bit of a shock because we where in the middle of nowhere when it happened. But after a look in the manual we pumped some diesel through the filter to check if it would be necessary to install our spare filter. After the filter incident, we thought that Simon may have missed us and so we drove to the place where he wanted to search for his sunglasses. We could not find him and after a lot of searching, we continued to the camp spot at the lake.
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Only after hours of looking for us Simon arrived at the camp spot as well. A pretty big fuck up. We could not imagine how we could have missed each other. But without any signal searching for each other seemed not to be an option as well.
We met again with a nice couple from Germany we had met earlier on the Pamir and had a good time together.
They told us that they had seen a big offroad camper truck that rolled down a very steep and long gravel slope and crashed into rocks. They showed us photos and we could not imagine how it could ever recovered from were it was laying now.
The same truck we had seen a couple of days before having fun of an offroad track and enjoying the Pamir.
Sometimes joy and disaster were just a hair’s breadth apart on the Pamir.
The border crossing back to Kyrgyzstan went very well. At the border a young soldier wanted to earn some extra money but we declined that.
When we reached the Kyrgyz border, the other travelers, whom we have met in Murghab, were already there. The most tricky part of the road between the borders had been improved to a degree that passing it slowly with a van and an ordinary car was possible when it was not raining.
Back in Osh, we were craving for stuff we could not get in the last weeks on the Pamir: pizza and cake!
A super nice final of our Pamir adventure.
This trip was absolutely amazing. I’ve never been before in an area like the Pamir. The remoteness, the nature, the views, the people, experiencing the so different way how they were living, and the offroad tracks made it a awesome and unique trip.

The Pamir Highway: Peak Lenin Base Camp, Qarokul Lake and Bartang Valley (August 2024)

We reunited with Simon and his car Otto and together we started our Pamir Highway adventure!
We bought a whole lot of stuff in the supermarket and filled both of Rosinante’s Diesel tanks.
We started in Osh and our first stop was the Basecamp of Peak Lenin. This mountain is very famous because a lot of people say it’s a pretty easy to climb seventh thousand plus mountain.
Racki and I thought about doing it as well at some point of our time in the stan countries but in the end we didn’t do it because it takes two up to three weeks. I love mountains but going back and forth the same routes (for acclimating) for two weeks… I didn’t feel like I wanted to do it although I’d love to reach a 7000m summit.
The area around the base camp was very beautiful and we did a nice hike with a beautiful view.
Unfortunately I had a strong diarrhoea and had to shit a lot and everywhere. So I did not do any big hikes.
These little and sometimes not so little fellows were everywhere and made a lot of squeaking noises.
We continued to the border to Tajikistan and on the way we tried to find some medicine for my diarrhoea. The pharmacies were all closed but we met nice travelers who gifted me some medicine.
We had organized the permit for the Pamir region and everything else in advance and so the border crossing went very well.
The road between the borders was pretty offroady (no photo) and we were wondering how people with vans and motorhomes were doing this. And there were actually living people between the borders.
On the other side of the border the real Pamir adventure began!
The landscapes were super beautiful and we found a very nice camp spot at the Karakul Lake at 4000 meters altitude.
It was crazy. The light and feeling in that area felt very special. I can’t really say why or how.
Racki and I did a nice hike up on the summit of the Urtabuz mountain at 5047 meters. It was a super easy hike.
We met some living friends on the way up.
And some dead. Actually Racki carried this skull, about 4 kg, almost to the summit and the whole way down again to our camp to gift it to Simon who was repairing his exhaust pipe which broke the day before.
The view from the summit was amazing! On 5000 meters  surrounded by 7000 to 8000 meter high mountains and perfect weather.
After a few days we continued our way into the famous Bartang Valley.
Our plan was to enter it from the east for about 40 km and then return because the tracks in that valley were crazy and we had heard a lot about crazy river crossings and cars getting stuck for days.
But once we had reached a certain point we decided to just continue and try to drive through the whole valley because the weather was perfect and had been like that for a long time.
So we guessed that the water level of the river would be pretty low and the potentially muddy parts would be ok.
The scenery and colors were amazing.
The track was ok and driving fast on the super dusty smooth parts was a lot of fun.
We made it easily over the most offroady part, at a small mountain pass. Only at one point, a pretty narrow, bumpy crossing of a stream on the mountain pass, I thought that maybe I would regret trying to pass this valley.
On iOverlander and in the chat groups travelers mentioned primarily three tough sections.
We made it through the two river crossings without a problem. As we had guessed the water level and current were pretty low. But still it felt pretty adventurous.
In the last tough section a land slide had made the track pretty narrow and depending on the water level you had to guess where the track was. Take a look at the photos and reports on iOverlander. When we arrived there, we could see almost the whole track and everything went well.
But this wrack next to the landslide reminded us how it can go.
We found a nice camp spot to relax after the adventurous part of the Bartang Valley.
The views were awesome.
There were some oases in the rocky terrain.
And the switching between rocks, gravel and the green was super interesting.
We always had some sweet presents with us.
In one oasis village we met a group of super friendly villagers. One of them spoke very good English and invited us to spend some time with them.
It was very interesting. We talked a lot about their lives in that remote village and about life in Tajikistan in general.
After they showed us their home, they wanted to see our homes and got very interested in how everything works and how we lived. We gifted them some clothes, medicine and bandages and it felt good to help them just a bit.
We continued our way in the Bartang Valley and found a nice camp spot close to a river to relax and stayed for a bit longer.
There were just a few cars taking the only off-road track through the valley. One day a solo backpacker from New Zealand joined us and together we had a great time with interesting conversations.
We had big respect for how our visitor was traveling: she was going alone through the valleys and crossing mountain ridges which were sometimes over 5000 meters high and was passing glaciers as well with pretty used equipment.
Our visitor got a seat in Otto and together we continued our journey through the valley which became more easy to drive and at some point we got back on a real dirt road.
This bridge looked adventurous but we did not have to cross it.
We did a nice and easy hike to a remote village which was only accessible by foot. On the way we met other travelers.
The village was very beautiful and located next to a lake. We learned about their lives there, how they were making bread and that they try to live in an ecological way.